, 1887-07-20

the kindness with which / was treated by Mr..
Minchin, the Duke of Aska, as he is generally
styled IN the Madras Presidency. His wealth
his commanding personal appearance, and
his long residence of 80 years at Aska, have
given him an almost unique position IN the
Presidency. He not only gave me a full run
of the works, but he introduced me to Mr..
Kollmann, and he instructed that gentleman
to let me make any experiments / liked, TO
take down any notes I pleased. and to nave
complete access to his books. With such an
introduction it would have been nay
fault if I had not got fairly complete data as
to what they were doing. You will see,
of course, that some of the figures given me
must necessarily have been of o private ma
ture, but still | have, | believe, full liberty to
give you sufficient details to enable you to
form a fair idea of the outturn of sugar and
of the method and cost Of manufacture at
Aska. Mr.. Minchin himself is an enthusiast
in sugar-making in general and diffusion in
particular. He sleeps IN a small room ad-
joining his pan loft throughout the whole of
the diffusion season Of one hundred days: and
alongside his bed there is a steam pipe with
a pressure guage upon it, enabling him to
tell at any time, night or day, the pressure
his boilers are being worked at, Ithink,
perhaps, the most convenient method for
Lie 10 dUOpU VIII III ~ give SOo L4oef u
short description of the machinery in the
buildings, and then to go through them
with you a second time dealing with
those details of the subject which more
particularly require calculation. In the diffu-
sion house, which was the first we entered,
there are five ~slicers, of which four are six
feet in diameter, furnished with six knives
each, and run at two hundred revolutions
per minute. Those slicers were made on the
spot by Mr.. Minchin, with the exception
of the disks, which were cast in Calcutta,
and he estimates their cost at E4O sterling,
as against 1900, the price he WAS asked by
an English engineer. The fifth slicer was
FIVE feet in diameter, but is rarely or never
used. Two of the six feet slicers are kept
always at work, and each runs through sixty
or seventy tons of cane in the twenty-four
hours, working continuously, or say, three
tons per hour, each. AS, however, constant
stoppages are necessary for the purpose OF
changing and sharpening the knives, an ope-
ration which at Aska takes about an hour,
three cutters are kept in harness, two of
which are as a rule running while the third
is either at rest or having its knives changed.
I mention these details somewhat infinitely,
as it was the complete breakdown of the
cutters furnished by the Sa~ngerhausen people
which brought our experiments at NonpGFcd
to q ~standstill and [ wish to show you that
the worst that can happen to US in this re.
spect is having to adopt the Aska pattern Of
cutter instead of that furnished by the Sa1-
gerhausen Company. The rest of the ma
chinery consists of q diffusion battery of
twelve cells, each cell containing three quar-
tiers of q ton of cane chips and holding four
hundred gallons of water when empty, or
two hundred when filled with chips. Then
there is a sulphur box very similar TO what
we use in this colony, and measuring tanks
for ascertaining the proper charges to draw
from the battery six defecators, holding $50
gallons each, Of the old French kettledrum
pattern, and a range of filter bag presses
used at the rate of one bag for every ton of
diffusion juice passed through them; two
concretor batteries of eleven and twelve plates
each respectively; a double effect containing
1,720 square feet of heating surface; two
vacuum pans striking about seven tons, and
three tons of dry sugar; nine under-driven
centrifugals of the old Manlove and Alliott
pattern, and the usual mGssecNite boxes. In
addition to these there is an immense range
or, perhaps, I should say, several immense
ranges-of other boxes for receiving the Sc
cond mGssecuite. These boxes are only con-
structed of wood, and the sides do not make
the smallest pretence of being watertight;
the bottoms are slightly Y shape, and are
caulked and perforated with holes. The in
side of these boxes is lined with bamboo mat